Well, I finally changed host for imageshack, just need to redo all the links....

Meanwhile, here are the modded rods :

Bushed small end with toyota 20mm brass bushing, oil hole bored, all that's left to do is hone them to get perfect oil clearance

Notched big end to get oil under the pistons since the toyota bushing has the oil hole on the wrong side blocking the oil pass on the nissan rod big end

Notched both side just because... should be enough to cool the pistons and get oil on that floating pin

And I'm probably going to catch hell for this but screw it...

One of the four M12 bolts line up and both dowel pins. Red top 212mm flywheel doesn't clear but 200mm bluetop one clears with the clutch and pressure plate on. Only thing I have no idea yet is the starter clearance and if it mates with the 4A ring gear.

Even the clutch cable hole lines up through the threaded hole supposed to recieve the forth M12 bolt. I'll just remove the dowel pin just under there, drill and tap the hole and it'll become the new location of that intake side M12 bolt.

Input shaft lines up, I don't want to use thick aluminum plate to make the adapter plate since I don't want to back the input shaft too much out of the pilot bearing so I'll probably use 1/4" plate steel.

Anyway, tonite I machined a insulating spacer to get between the GZE intake and the head. With the holley's primary facing forward, the throttle linkage is sandwiched between the carb and the head, right in the PCV way. I'll do something about the PCV but even so it was a little to tight for my taste. With that 1" spacer, it'll do the trick and help isolate the intake and carb and prevent heat soaking.

Here's a quick mockup to check how everything fit with the spacer. I'll just cut the PCV fitting and weld a 90° toward the back of the head to get a hose to hug the cam cover until the firewall before going to the catch can.

...right in time to forget it in the far end of the shed as a backup in case the K50 isn't up to the task... sad because it was pretty clean.

And as soon as that was finished, I charged ahead into the K50 inspection/rebuild... with no FSM...

Scratched my head a little, but after figuring out everything, I am impressed by this little tranny. I have never worked on a weird tranny like that though. The design is impressive, how everything was created to be as compact as possible. The reverse gear has no selector, actually the reverse gear on the output shaft is cast on the 1st/2nd gear selector so is always turning with the output shaft. The countershaft reverse gear is also always engaged so to engage the reverse gear, the "idler" gear is attached to the shifting rod and moves to mesh between the 2 other gears when reverse is selected... really weird but compact. The 5th gear lives in the extension housing where the reverse gear on a T50 normally is. Thing is that to engage properly with the standard H pattern, it needs a weird linkage to inverse the shifter movement that pulls on the rod but the selector need to move forward to engage 5th gear... and to be sure that there is no slop in there, their is 2 eccentric bolt to adjust everything perfectly... anyway, it's weird and beautifully thought at the same time.

But the thing that surprised me the most was that I was able to strip the hole tranny, shifting rods and both input and output shaft with only a hands full of tools : 12 and 14mm wrench, a pin punch, a hammer, flat and philips head screwdriver and a pair of c-clip pliers... no gear pullers or press, no SST... you could rebuild the whole tranny in the bed of a pickup truck in the middle of freaking nowhere with the basic tools that are hiding behind the drivers seat... awesome!

So the verdict : synchros are brand freaking new. Input and output shaft bearings are the same as the ones in the T50 and are new too, no slop and spins like butter. Both input and output seals are also the same as the T50 and I already have a new pair waiting. All the gears are in perfect conditions. The only parts that will need replacing is the front countershaft bearing and the shaft that goes trough the counter shaft. Luckily, that shaft is only 46$ from toyota and the needle bearing can be replaced by a SKF bearing worth 30$. I'll also need to replace a circlip that has seen better days and a couple bolts... all in all I have less than 100$ of parts to bring it back to new condition... not to bad!

And here is the ****ty part... don't ask me how I did this... the 5th/reverse linkage is held on the case with 2 countersunk philips head screws... piece of crap for everyone who has taken apart an oil pump and the likes, half of the time the stupid bit slips and strips the head... not in my case...

Got torque?

The stupid bit shattered in a thousand pieces... and it wasn't a master-crap bit, trust me. So now 3/4 of it is still stuck in the head and sure enough it stripped while shattering so it won't come out.

Luckily those screws are worth 0.76$ from toyota... I'll have to weld the shattered bit in the hole to be able to pull the last bit of linkage left in the case, than I'll order my parts on monday and get everything cleaned good to be able to slap everything back in the case when parts will arrive.

Well little update, I've been away fishing for the last week so no work has been done on the peanut. And now I'm kinda stucked with the darn tranny again : I've had no chances with the darn K50... just before leaving, I ordered everything missing to put it back together when I get back online at lithiatoyota to find out later that day that the only thing still available for the K50 are the 2 countersunk screws... the countershaft took a beating from the worn front bearing, I could probably sleeve it and I found a generic SKF bearing that should fit in place but no chances on the thrust washer. I've sent request on a dozen other website still listing the stock in there database to be faced with the same answer : "no longer available". I've tried oversea forums with dozen of K50 but no one wants to dive in and remove a couple parts. I won't buy a 300$ K50 in AUS and pay 500$ to get it here, no way and most of them just don't want to ship international anyway...

So it's getting stupidly complicated... so plans have changed again... I got in touch with a guy that will provide me with a short tail T40... I'll just have to swap in the shifting rods and get the extension + shifter on the 22 spline T50 I have here... so the shifter will fall in place which is one of the reasons I wanted to swap the K50 in the first place, the other was the cable clutch, luckily, modding a bellhousing from hydro to cable is no big deal. Guess what's going to happen...? So yeah, the engine will not be the only frankeinstein piece on that car

So the K50 is back again together as was when I took it apart... talk about a waste of time... and the T50 is now disassembled once again... another waste of time. Oh well what can you do...?

So while I wait to get everything back to finish the darn tranny, I spent a little time doing boring stuff...

I cut the PCV tube going out of the intake cam cover to reweld it at 90° facing the rear. It may not look like much but the goal was to get as much clearance as possible for the holley so I stuck it as close as possible to the cam cover... let me tell you, welding the backside was far from something enjoyable. It's so close to the cam cover that I even filled a little bit of the cam cover under the fitting so the hose still slips on after a couple layers of paint.

Now the lettering is painted of both cam covers and the plate to hide the spark plug (whatever that thing is called) is primed. I'll take some picture of the darn 90° fitting when the paint will be done.

Apart from that, I also lost a little time with the rod bolt... you see, the L16 ARP rod bolt are not 100% bolt-on, here is a side by side comparaison with the stock E16 ones:

Yep the head is a lot bigger... in fact a couple hundredth too big to fit in place so I had to grind a little material on one side to allow them to slide easily in place

Now that everything is back together, I'll hone the big ends to there final specs and balance everything

Franken-trans! I am always afraid to open up a manual trans, but you make it sound so simple...

Well it is... after all a gearbox is just a box full of gears

Honestly, the first time you do it is probably the worst. Take lots of pictures, organize your work bench and all. Now I can put everything in an ice cream pot, forget about it for a couple of months and get everything back as it was... without even a FSM. But it wasn't like that the first time.

Oh and you learn a lot about how the damn thing works when you do that... first tranny I took apart was a T40 and I must have played with it for a whole evening turning the shaft and operation the shifting rods.

A couple pieces of wood screwed together and a rachet with a 32mm box hung from the celling with a chain

The rods where horribly balanced from the factory, one of them was over 5% heavier than the rest... ridiculous... and I'm not even getting into the small end/big end stuff. I had to get creative to remove material without weakening them. The rest was close to perfect : piston + pin + snap-ring + gapped ring were all within 0.2g of each other... good job Toyota!

But the nicest part is the final total weight of the rods + ARP bolt : 482.2g. I couldn't confirmed but I found on the internet that the stock blacktop rods tip the balance at 485g

The Piston + pin + snap-ring + gapped rings tip the balance at 442.3g. All that's missing is the weight of the rod bearing but the final assembly should be well under the 950g mark.

I'll try to assemble everything tonight and if time permits, throw everything in the block.